Process rids sugar-based ethanol of vinasse

Ethanol Producer Magazine
September 2010
By Kris Bevill
Posted Aug. 31, 2010

Cincinnati-based engineering and consulting firm AdvanceBio LLC has developed a process that it says will eliminate the vinasse typically produced as a byproduct of sugar-based ethanol production.

Unlike corn-ethanol plants, which produce marketable distillers grains during the ethanol process, sugar-based plants produce vinasse, which consists mostly of water with a small amount of organic material and has little market value. Advance Bio principal Dale Monceaux said Brazilian plants typically truck vinasse to fields where it is used for irrigation and a nutrient boost. That application is acceptable at smaller plants and in rural areas, but for large plants located in populated areas, such as would likely be the case in the southern U.S., dumping vinasse in area fields poses serious environmental concerns. “Historically, that’s the big problem with sugar-based alcohol,” Monceaux said. “It’s not that it’s a hazardous pollutant. It’s a highly digestible organic that creates a BOD [biochemical oxygen demand] if it ever hits a waterway.” If rainfall were to occur shortly after vinasse was emptied into fields, the runoff could pollute waterways and cause a reduction in oxygen levels, which would inevitably result in fish kills, he said.

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